that I find myself missing every once in a while. It’s weird, because it’s almost as if I am usually unaware that the feeling even exists until I get close enough to it to remember it. And while I get close to it, I should specify that close, in this context, means just enough to remember it. I don’t actually get that close to feeling it.
Enough vagueness. There isn’t a simple way to sum up this feeling, so I’m just going to describe it in great detail. As I said, the feeling is very specific.
The last time I remember it in its entirety was when I was younger. I was in Seattle visiting my dad. A little before I left, I met this amazing girl named Erin. We’d hit it off, and I’d fallen completely in love with her. We spent every ounce of time we could together, and after only the couple weeks of this, I had to leave to go to Seattle.
I felt very alone in Seattle. I didn’t want to be there in the first place, but my newly found infatuation with this girl just made my desire to not be there even more intense. I’m impatient when it comes to love. I would talk to her on the phone and listen to The Pixies on my ipod religiously (she had introduced me to the Pixies and I had fallen in love with them too). We drove down to Portland, Oregon for a few nights and I would wander around right on the river smoking cigarettes a homeless guy bought me, listening to the song “Hotel Arizona” by Wilco. I would smoke and be sad and think about her and think about how I couldn’t wait to see her and be home.
That’s the feeling, and my terrible description doesn’t even begin to cover how profound it was. It’s weird: when it’s laid out in front of me it seems pretty commonplace and insignificant, but the fact that I never feel it anymore should be evidence enough of how significant it is.
So, to sum it up, I guess: being thousands of miles from something you’ve never experienced before and something you’ve never wanted more in your life and being completely alone, smoking cigarettes and listening to Wilco. But it’s so much more than that. I can’t even explain it. It’s fucking frustrating. Because I can remember numerous times that I’ve felt incredibly similar to what I just described. Maybe its just the first time that counts, and then it’s never the same. Maybe that’s it. It feels like I can say, without a doubt, that I will never feel the way I did that day ever again.
It’s total loneliness combined with happiness. Lonely because you’re away from it and happy because you know you’ll get it in a little while. There’s not a chance in hell that it could disappear. That must be it; that time I was in Seattle while infatuated with Erin — that’s the only time in my entire life that I’ve been away from something (someone) I’ve wanted with all my heart, knowing absolutely that it will be there when I get back. Knowing that there’s not a chance in hell that it could go wrong or that I could do something to fuck it up or that something (someone) more interesting could come along and sweep it away. Knowing that it won’t get cold feet and disappear.
You know, this is what makes me think that I may never be happily in a long-term relationship ever again. I think everybody deserves to be with someone who accepts them completely, who they accept and love completely. Perfect balance. You love them more than anything, and they love you more than anything. A mutual level of love and infatuation. Thing is, though, I’ve already had that. Maybe that was it, and I ruined it.
Or maybe it wasn’t perfect and that’s why I ruined it, and maybe I will get it someday. Jesus, I don’t know.
Love taught me early on that it was something beautiful, even when it was sad or destructive or unhealthy or unrequited. No matter what happened, it would be something to collect and hold on to and write about and sing about and remember forever with admiration, because it happened, and that’s what was important. But for the last 2 years, to be totally honest, it hasn’t lived up to its lesson.
See, before, it was innocent. It was a mindless, intoxicated exercise in being alive and feeling and learning, and there wasn’t any cruelty in it or rage because all of the hurtful things that happened could be blamed on the intoxicating effects of love itself. We didn’t know what we were doing and we didn’t know what we wanted and we didn’t know how to deal with fear or intense emotion and we were naively selfish and hopeful. And we were young.
Now we’re all older and experienced and know exactly what we’re doing, and when I get hurt the bitter taste stays in my mouth because I knew what I was getting myself into and they knew the emotional consequences of their actions. And that makes me sick. What used to be an act of two hearts blindly crashing into one another has turned into a calculated game of ritual and, in many cases, destruction and spitefulness.
I probably sound like a maniac, but whatever. It’s late and I basically just typed and typed until I ran out of steam.
